Title: The Astonishing Legend of Brave and Handsome Sir Prince Domyoji the Mighty (or "Tell Them a Story")

Author: dawbygirl

Rating: T for Trifling... or for Teen, whichever. Nothing too bad in here.

Summary: Tsukasa's idea of a bedtime story for the kiddies.

Disclaimer: Sadly, I don't own these characters. But man, oh man, the things I'd do to Tsukasa if I did - !

"One more! One more!"

The excited voices of happy children are not usually considered by the general public to be a cause for alarm. However, usual assumptions about children went out the window when the boy and girl currently conducting experiments in physics with the help of a large quantity of crystal drinking glasses were in question. In the experience of the mother of these particular youngsters, happy children often equaled children about to be in a great deal of trouble.

The twins were both on top of the polished dining table, giggling hysterically as one stretched on tiptoes to add another glass to the tottering stack that already wobbled as tall as her head, when their suspicious mother poked her head into the opulent dining room. Her face convulsed as she stifled back the shriek that wanted – badly – to escape. Shrieking only made things worse with these two. After five years of the twins, Tsukushi Makino Domyoji knew what didn't work with them, though she still hadn't the faintest what did work with them.

"Mariko. Tohru," she said carefully, trying not to startle them into accidentally shattering the sparkling result of careful labor into flying shards of glassy doom. "What are you doing?"

Tohru started guiltily, but his brassier sister cheekily flashed her mother a grin. "Buildin' a tower, Mama! Like Daddy!"

"Like Daddy. I see." Tsukushi walked over to the table and gingerly began separating the children's creation into smaller "towers." "But Daddy doesn't build towers with glasses, you sillies." She paused, suddenly suspicious all over again. "Or does he?"

The resulting sniggers gave her the answer to her fairly stupid question.

Tohru's eyes widened. "Uh-oh, Mariko. Mommy's growling again."

"I am not growling!" Tsukushi grabbed Tohru under the arms and deposited him on the floor. She turned for Mariko, but the little girl skipped just out of reach.

"Ooo, you can't reach me!" she teased in a sing-song, hopping from one foot to another. "Can't reach me! You can't reach me!"

"Get over here!" snapped Tsukushi in frustration.

Mariko danced close enough to be caught for just a moment, escaping at the last moment and laughing wildly. Tohru laughed, too, and scrambled up onto a chair, intent on joining his sister.

"Oh, no you don't!" hissed Tsukushi, restraining him with one arm while she unsuccessfully grabbed for Mariko with the other.

"Waah! Let me go!" bawled Tohru, clawling madly at the table and trying to hook his knee over the tabletop while the dancing Mariko chanted over and over, "Can't reach me! Can't reach me! Can't reach me!" and Tsukushi howled, "Get down from there!" above the din.

"What's going on in here?" roared a new voice.

Tsukushi and the twins froze for a moment before all three simultaneously turned their heads towards the doorway.

Tsukushi frantically blew her bangs out of her eyes. "A little help here, Tsukasa."

"Daddy!" the twins screeched in unison as they hurled themselves at their father, Tsukushi completely forgotten.

Tsukasa Domyoji, holding baby Kyoko in one arm and not looking at all as angry as he had sounded, grinned and dropped to one knee, absorbing the hurricane impact of the hyperactive children into his large body and hugging them both with his free arm.

"Daddy! Daddy! Daddy! Da - "

"Mariko and me, we made – "

" – ddy! Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!"

" – a tower! An' it was big an' – "

"An' Mommy didn't like it!"

" – it was just like yours! An' – "

"Gabaggah!" shrieked Kyoko, flailing her tiny arms wildly, apparently feeling left out.

"They felt the need to build towers with the good New York crystal from your mother," stated Tsukushi pointedly.

Tsukasa sized up his wife's crossed arms, her dagger eyes, and the way her weight was aggressively centered on one hip. "Eh-heh." He looked guilty. "Can't imagine what would have given them that idea."

"Tsukasa, you miserable liar."

"She's been doing that growling thing she does a lot tonight," Mariko whispered confidentially into her father's ear, while Tohru, clueless, explained, "But Mommy, Daddy showed us how nice those glasses stack. The other ones without the pretty designs don't stack as well!"

"Oh, come on, Tsukushi," Tsukasa wheedled. He put Kyoko on the floor with her siblings, who had now attached themselves each to a leg, and straightened up to his feet. "I thought you didn't like them anyway. Did any get broken?"

"You know, it was difficult enough dealing with just one of you. Now I'm cursed with three of you."

Tsukasa slowly approached her, a mischievous light sparking somewhere in the back of his eyes. Tsukushi tried to scowl, but the sight of her tall, proud husband shuffling towards her with a toddler wrapped around each leg and that naughty grin of his on his lips was too much. True, one Tsukasa Domyoji was more work than she'd ever bargained for, and the twin chibi carbon-copies of him were even more difficult, but by the same token, one Tsukasa Domyoji had been more happiness than she'd ever been prepared for, and the arrival of the twins had only increased her bliss exponentially. She laughed.

"You're awful. All of you! At least the baby is normal."

She bent over and scooped up Kyoko, who was beginning to whimper for attention. Unlike her twin siblings, who mirrored their father from his impossible dark curly hair and whiskey brown eyes to his stubborn jaw and arrogant belligerence, Kyoko had her mother's soft, large eyes and early signs of her Aunt Tsubaki's glorious wavy tresses and classic beauty.

"Hey, you," Tsukushi said to the baby. "Weren't you asleep?"

"She was just waking up when I got home from work." Tsukasa finally reached his wife and pressed a lingering kiss to her temple. "Hello."

"She never sleeps long. Hello, Tsukasa," she responded with a smile, and was rewarded with another kiss, this one full on the lips.

"Eww!" chorused the twins, making dreadful gagging faces.

"Tabbo," said Kyoko gently. Ignore those ruffians, Mom and Dad.

Tsukushi and Tsukasa pulled apart ruefully.

"Bedtime!" Tsukushi sang out and Tsukasa dutifully picked up both twins, one under each arm, ignoring their dismayed wails of protest.

The five of them made their way upstairs to the picture-perfect bedroom shared by the twins, or the bedroom that would have been picture-perfect if there hadn't been so many books and toys and clothes scattered about the floor.

"Weren't the maids in today?" asked Tsukasa, eyeing the disaster. He dropped Tohru and Mariko on one of the two beds, to the utter delight of the twins. They both scrambled to their feet, jumping happily up and down and demanding, "Again!"

"Yes, they were." Tsukushi settled Kyoko on the floor with a smiling plastic dinosaur to chew on and began rummaging for the twins' respective pajamas.

"Then why – "

"And yes, they did already clean in here today."

"Oh."

The young parents managed to wrestle their rambunctious offspring into pajamas and brush their teeth. Finally in bed, the children began to demand a bedtime story.

"Of course," said Tsukasa charitably. "Mommy tells nice stories, doesn't she? Hey, wait a minute." He looked apprehensively at the brilliant smile on his wife's face. "Wait a minute, what's that look for?" he started to protest, when Tsukushi pushed him down on Mariko's bed and plopped baby Kyoko on his lap.

"I have that big exam coming up for my degree!" she said brightly. "Daddy gets to tell the story tonight."

That floored him with all the force of a dropping anvil. "But - ! But the guys are coming over! And – and… Tsukushi! Come back here!"

Ignoring his sputtering protests, Tsukushi kissed each child good night and headed downstairs, humming to herself. Tohru and Mariko crossed their arms simultaneously, looking displeased at the arrangements.

"Dad can't tell stories," Tohru complained.

"Yeah," agreed Mariko. "He tells dumb stories. About stupid bunnies."

Tskukasa glared. "I can too tell stories! I tell great stories!"

"Madappa," encouraged Kyoko. You tell 'em, Dad.

"I do!" he insisted.

"Your last story was stupid."

"Yeah. And short. Me an' Mariko don't wanna hafta go to sleep yet."

"Yeah, well – " Tsukasa floundered desperately for a moment. "Well… well, I know the best story ever!"

"Oh, yeah?" Doubt, doubt, doubt.

"Yeah!" he shot back. He was arguing with five-year-olds again. "The best."

"Yeah? So what's it called?" taunted Mariko.

"Called? Uh. Eh-heh." He scratched his head nervously. "It's um, called, um, the – uh – the Legend – no, the Astonishing Legend! – of Brave and Handsome Sir – uh, Prince – Domyoji the Mighty. Yeah."

The twins stared at him blankly. There was a moment of silence before –

"The what?"

"Da-ad!"

"Mommy!! He's sucking!"

"That's a stupid name for a story!"

Kyoko whacked him sympathetically on the shoulder while Tsukasa covered his face with one hand. It was going to be a long night.

Edit: A couple tiny things that I changed, as well as the spelling of the family. flush Thank you to those that pointed out my faux pas!